Malnutrition & lack of medical facilities: Bombay HC seeks report from Nandurbar collector on deaths of 86 kids

Seeking effective redressal of the concerns of the tribal population, including access to medical facilities, the High Court referred to Dashrath Manjhi, the ‘mountain man’ from Bihar, who carved a path through a hillock using a hammer and chisel to help people from his village get access to roads and hospitals.

A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice M S Karnik was hearing a bunch of pleas, including those filed by activists Rajendra Burma and Bandu Sampatrao Sane, on malnutrition among children in Melghat.

On Wednesday, raising concerns over an ‘unfortunate incident’ of a woman in Palghar district recently losing her twins within 24 hours of their birth due to a delay in reaching the medical centre, the bench asked the Maharashtra government to take immediate steps to make health facilities accessible to expectant mothers and infants in tribal areas. The detailed order was made available on Saturday.

While deliberating on this order, the bench referred to the inspirational life story of Shri Dashrath Manjhi, popularly known as ‘Mountain Man’.

“We read that Manjhi, single-handedly, started carving a path in the mountain using only a hammer and a chisel because of an unfortunate incident that had taken place in his life. The government eventually recognised his efforts and then went out of its way to complete the task that Manjhi had single-handedly undertaken for the development of the village for the availability of the hospital and the road,” it said.

The bench also expressed displeasure that while schemes and measures are in place to deal with concerns in the tribal areas, the effect of the same is not seen at the ground level. The HC said that if there is any lack of coordination between the implementing agencies coming in the way of tribals from availing benefits of the schemes, respective heads of the concerned departments must come together and provide a road map to ensure that the schemes and measures do not remain just on paper.

The court asked the state government to consider and take suitable steps on the suggestions made by the petitioners about immediate measures taken to address the concerns. The suggestions made by the petitioner, Sane also included increasing the personnel and infrastructure strength of the Public Health Centres (PHCs) to take care of all patients, coordination between implementing agencies and improvement in the quality and quantity of food provided to pregnant women and children between zero to six years.

Asking the state government to take implement the measures immediately, the bench posted further hearing in the matter to September 12.